tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post5966916685677821239..comments2024-03-28T09:14:32.869-04:00Comments on southern orders: IS THE CATHOLIC SKY FALLING UNDER POPE FRANCIS? SOME SAY YES; SOME SAY NOT YET AND OTHERS NO, THIINGS ARE ALL ROSEY? WHAT SAY YOU? THIS IS WHAT MONSIGNOR NICOLA BUX IS SAYING AND IT IS NOT SO FLATTERINGFr. Allan J. McDonaldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16986575955114152639noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-15677507332063532672017-06-22T14:42:54.713-04:002017-06-22T14:42:54.713-04:00Priests should be well educated in matters ecclesi...Priests should be well educated in matters ecclesial. Some have training beyond churchy matters. <br /><br />To expect them to excel on "every other topic" is 1) an unreal expectation and 2) a recipe for disaster.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-32589515865731636952017-06-22T13:12:40.986-04:002017-06-22T13:12:40.986-04:00I expect that my priests know much more about this...I expect that my priests know much more about this topic than I do, so I would credit their opinions on it just as I credit their opinions on every other topic. We are very blessed to have excellent priests on whom we can rely. Marchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13510317669833026685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-25495202168209338322017-06-22T11:28:29.310-04:002017-06-22T11:28:29.310-04:00My mode of thinking is not ill-informed. By all m...My mode of thinking is not ill-informed. By all means study using "approved" sources - nothing there will challenge your or your priest's way of thinking.<br /><br />Knowing what one knows is not hubris, by the way. That is a very faulty understanding of the proper virtue of humility.<br /><br />And if there is unnecessary hubris, pray tell, when it is necessary?Fr. Michael J. Kavanaughnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-5925618222985940792017-06-22T10:27:02.565-04:002017-06-22T10:27:02.565-04:00There's no point in having this discussion aga...There's no point in having this discussion again: You won't change my understanding, and I won't change yours. <br /><br />Next time this comes up, though, try using heliocentrism and usury instead of the Jesuits and <i>Quo Primum</i> because they are better examples of the difficulty inherent in determining how doctrine can develop. I have recently been following a discussion of those topics by people who have more knowledge of this subject of doctrinal development than either you or I, and I concluded that neither you nor I have enough knowledge to discuss this in a meaningful way. <br /><br />So not only are we not going to change each other's minds, we are just going to further entrench ourselves in modes of thinking that are ill-informed. I'd rather continue to study the topic further through approved sources and manuals than debate you on it. Understand, that's not a knock on you, it's a matter of preserving my intellectual processes so that I don't become unnecessarily hubristic about my own positions.Marchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13510317669833026685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-38088121843125898932017-06-22T09:55:48.610-04:002017-06-22T09:55:48.610-04:00No, Marc, you did not refute anything. You misrea...No, Marc, you did not refute anything. You misread statements that sound, to you, like "absolute" and irreformable statements, when, in fact, they are not. How do we know they are not? Because what they seemed to establish in perpetuity is changed. As regards Quo Primum, the liturgy was changed, though QP said it never, ever, ever would or could be. As regards Dominus ac Redemptor, the Jesuits were suppressed for ever and ever and ever. But, guess what. They're back.<br /><br />Now, if you asked someone at the time of QP or DacR if those statements were irreformable, they would probably have said, "Absolutely!" They would, of course, be shown to be wrong in time. You are looking for a finality, a certitude, heaven known why, in human expressions of our understanding of God's revelation. <br /><br />Pope Benedict wrote about the progress of understanding God in his infamous Regensburg address. The Catholic has to interpret revelation as a gradual process toward Jesus. "Anyone who wishes to understand the biblical belief in God must follow its historical development from its origins with the patriarchs of Israel right up to the last books of the New Testament. In his 2010 exhortation Verbum Domini, B16 wrote, "God's plan is manifested progressively and it is accomplished slowly, in successive stages, and despite human resistance." Revelation, "is suited to the cultural and moral level of distant times." "It follows straightaway that neither the criterion of inspiration NOR THAT OF INFALLIBILITY (caps mine) can be applied mechanically."<br /><br />Doctrine develops - it always has and it always will. The process is awkward at times and painful at times, but then many beneficial processes are. Understanding Revelation is not a legal process. Fr. Michael J. Kavanaughnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-60294063531723092802017-06-22T09:25:51.692-04:002017-06-22T09:25:51.692-04:00I already addressed your attempt to analogize the ...I already addressed your attempt to analogize the suppression of the Jesuits and the promulgation of <i>Quo Primum</i> to proper doctrinal development. After I refuted your argument last time, you stopped responding. <br /><br />I read an interesting quote yesterday that is apropos, though. From Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson: <br /><br />"'But to return. I understand that development must be along the original lines of the nature of the organism. If an oak, after ten years' growth, suddenly rejected roots and walked out of my garden on legs, I should conclude that I had been mistaken as to its oak-nature. It cannot change the laws of its existence; it may throw out branches, but not hands.'<br /><br />John then reflects that it is the reproach of the Church of Rome that she will not change nor eat her words. Like Pilate, what she has written, she has written. She may expound and amplify her statements; she may make explicit what was once only implicit; but the original statement still stands as a summary of its later amplifications."<br /><br />Also, I agree wholeheartedly with Victor's posts.Marchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13510317669833026685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-50035712822362655302017-06-22T08:02:20.914-04:002017-06-22T08:02:20.914-04:00Fr Kavanaugh: "No one that I know of is sugge...Fr Kavanaugh: "No one that I know of is suggesting that adultery is no longer a sin. AM does not do so."<br /><br />It seems that Belgium's,Germany's, and Malta's bishops do: <br /><br />"Belgium’s bishops have become the latest to read the exhortation as giving — under certain conditions but with an emphasis on the primacy of conscience — access to the Sacraments for some civilly remarried divorcees without an annulment." <br /><br />http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/doctrinal-anarchy-as-bishops-conflicting-positions-on-amoris-laetitia- <br /><br />Having one sacramental (real) wife and one civil concubine in my book (the Bible) is adultery. I guess that is in accord with the Bugnini liturgy which went out of its way to eliminate from the lectionary St Paul's warning of receiving the Eucharist unworthily. <br />Victornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-4951089907586763292017-06-21T20:26:23.291-04:002017-06-21T20:26:23.291-04:00But did anyone ever declare that these matters wer...But did anyone ever declare that these matters were irreformable? Are you presuming that that was the case, or is it given per se?<br /><br />Remember that statements such as those found in Quo Primum and the bull dissolving the Jesuits while sounding definitive and irreformable were not.<br /><br />Victor - No one that I know of is suggesting that adultery is no longer a sin. AM does not do so.<br /><br />Fr. Michael J. Kavanaughnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-45276257554014445492017-06-21T17:38:53.385-04:002017-06-21T17:38:53.385-04:00Fr Kavanaugh:
Who is to decide that adultery is no...Fr Kavanaugh:<br />Who is to decide that adultery is no longer a sin, so that the 10 commandments need to be re-interpreted for the modern age? The Pope? The conference of Bishops? Or individual conscience?Voctornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-77332248802415277672017-06-21T17:37:07.440-04:002017-06-21T17:37:07.440-04:00If it is possible for a doctrine to be discovered ...If it is possible for a doctrine to be discovered to be reformable when it was previously recognized to be irreformable, then there is no sense having any doctrine because today's doctrine could be refuted tomorrow. That sort of doctrine would lead one to conclude that God changes. And a changing God is no God at all. Marchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13510317669833026685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-38162683181643250262017-06-21T17:15:20.854-04:002017-06-21T17:15:20.854-04:00There are teaching that were thought to be irrefor...There are teaching that were thought to be irreformable that were, in fact, not. <br /><br />Among them: the existence of Limbo, the necessity of the Catholic Church being given pride of place among religions by civil governments, freedom of conscience in choosing which religion, if any, to adhere to (Assisi I).<br /><br />Over time we have come to understand more clearly Divine Revelation, and that clearer understanding has led us to reformulate our doctrine.<br /><br />Fr. Michael J. Kavanaughnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-35499162987041220452017-06-21T15:56:02.146-04:002017-06-21T15:56:02.146-04:00My take on all this is that Catholics will continu...My take on all this is that Catholics will continue to believe as Catholics and worship as Catholics (if given the opportunity to do so) regardless of who occupies the See of Peter. There have been dire popes in the past and there will be in the future.<br /><br />What is encouraging is that so many of these Catholics belong to a generation twice removed from mine, and I don't see myself as particularly elderly - I still work and most Sundays contribute to the liturgy by singing Gregorian chant, which I only took up in a serious way a decade ago.<br /><br />The so-called EF is simply the Mass of my childhood (ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam) and I don't shun the Novus Ordo (although I am aware of its deficiencies and hardly ever attend it in the vernacular).<br /><br />I have lived through one dysfunctional papacy (Paul VI in his last ten years) and can (DV) happily survive the present one.John Nolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09027156691859606002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-17257057959408996432017-06-21T14:57:24.405-04:002017-06-21T14:57:24.405-04:00Marc:
Your comment on pastoral vs doctrinal dialec...Marc:<br />Your comment on pastoral vs doctrinal dialectic is important, because these are not meant to be opposed. When the Council Fathers called for a more pastoral Church it was because they saw that, even though the Church was pastoral, it could do much better in seeing to the spiritual needs of every Catholic. Unfortunately, within a few years of the Council, that term "pastoral", because it is not a precise term, took on an almost opposite meaning. "Pastoral" became a clarion call for change in doctrine and Church teaching for the good of the faithful. Like in the liturgy, Man came first in the new Church. Sadly, this latter way is how the current pope understands the term, and the Church is in trouble, because I think it is beyond his competence to understand its disastrous logical implications.Victornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846189835239594160.post-30939139758784113292017-06-21T12:28:13.047-04:002017-06-21T12:28:13.047-04:00The crisis has been going on for several decades. ...The crisis has been going on for several decades. But it is more overt now so more people are able to recognize it for what it is. Francis is the culmination of the pre- and post-Vatican II destabilization of doctrine. As we have seen in our discussions here, no longer is the question whether one believes or disbelieves certain doctrines that the Church proposes for our belief. Now the debate centers around whether something is a doctrine in the first place. Francis has institutionalized that sort of extra-doctrinal pathway by enshrining the pastoral versus doctrinal dialectic.<br /><br />But, again, this is not something that Francis is singularly responsible for. The crisis reached a pivotal point with Assisi I. And before that the crisis among the bishops vis-a-vis the pope was made manifest with the debates surrounding <i>Humanae Vitae</i>. <br /><br />Part of the proper response is to turn to the Church's definitions at Vatican I, which make clear that the pope is the custodian of the tradition, but not its manufacturer. The pope lacks the authority to impose novelty on the Church. Another part of the proper response is to recognize, as some prelates are starting to do, that the Vatican II documents lend to this sort of problem. <br /><br />It is telling that cardinals have written a letter to Francis where they have to address the question whether they are sedevacantists or believe Benedict is still pope. These were extremely fringe groups just a few years ago. Now they are at least significant enough that cardinals must mention their arguments in seeking an audience with the pope.<br /><br />Of course, when the pope is promulgating documents contrary to the words of Christ and promoting institutional sacrilege, I suppose nothing else should be shocking. Marchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13510317669833026685noreply@blogger.com